Master the Ribbon in Microsoft Office

How to Tweak the Quick Access Toolbar in Microsoft Office

Your favorite commands can be just a click away.

The Quick Access toolbar in Microsoft Office offers you an effortless way to access different features and commands. The Quick Access toolbar (which we’ll call QAT through the rest of this article) is always there and always available no matter where you are or what you’re doing in any Office application. By default, the QAT comes with just a few icons, so you may not find it very useful at the start. However, by adding icons you need to the toolbar and removing the ones you don’t need, you can customize it to your own tastes. You can pack it with a couple of dozen icons, which means all your favorite commands are just a click away. And once you know how to modify the QAT in one Office program, you can do the same in your other Office programs. Let’s look at how to tweak the Quick Access Toolbar.

Note: As always, I’m using Office 2016 as my test subject, but the steps apply equally to the past few versions of Office. I’ll use Word as my guinea pig though the process of tweaking the QAT is the same across the entire Office suite.

First, launch Word and then open any document.

Now glance at the upper left of the Word screen. The icons at the top make up the Quick Access Toolbar. Unless you’ve already modified the QAT, it should show only the default icons for a few Word commands, such as Save, Undo, Repeat, and Touch/Mouse Mode.

To add more commands, click on the dropdown arrow at the right end of the toolbar for Customize Quick Access Toolbar. A menu pops up displaying several commands you can add.

Check on each command you wish to add.

In this article, we’ll add the following commands: New, Open, Quick Print, Print Preview and Print, and Spelling & Grammar. Then check off each command you wish to remove. We’ll remove the icon for Touch/Mouse Mode. You can also remove icons using a faster method. Right-click on the icon you want to remove and then click on the command to Remove from Quick Access Toolbar. That’s a speedy way to add or remove just basic commands for the QAT.

There’s a lot more you can do. Click on the dropdown arrow and then click on the entry for More Commands, or right-click on the toolbar and click on the command to Customize Quick Access Toolbar. A Word Options window to Customize the Quick Access Toolbar pops up.

On the left side of the window are all the available commands that you can add to the QAT. Click on the dropdown menu item that says: Popular Commands. You can switch the view to peek at Commands Not in the Ribbon (referring to the Ribbon menu), All Commands, Macros, or commands for a specific tab of the Ribbon, but let’s keep the setting to Popular Commands for now.

On the right side of the window are the commands currently on tap in the QAT. Here you can remove commands one after the other. To remove a command from the QAT, just click on it and click on the Remove button. We’ll remove the command for Repeat, aka Redo.

On the flip side, you can add commands. On the left side, scroll down to choose a command you wish to add, such as Copy. Select the command and click on the Add button.

Add several more commands, including Cut, Find, Format Painter, Insert Picture, Paste, and Save As. Click OK at the bottom of the window to return to your document. The QAT now sports all the icons you added.

Let’s say we want to add more. Return to the Customize the Quick Access Toolbar window. This time, click on the dropdown menu entry for Popular Commands and change it to All Commands. Now you can choose from the full gamut of Word commands. Add the following commands: Add Table, Close, Copy Text, Macros, Paste and Keep Text Only, Paste Special, and Style. When done, click OK.

Now the QAT is heavily populated with accessible commands. There’s only one problem. They’re not organized. We can take care of that.

Go back to the Customize the Quick Access Toolbar window. Follow these steps:

• Click on any command on the right. Notice the two arrows next to the list, an up arrow and a down arrow.
• Click on the up arrow to move the selected command up (or actually left) in the list.
• Click on the down arrow to move the command down (or right) in the list. For example, group your file commands, such as Save, New File, Open, and Close, one after the other, and group your formatting commands, such as Cut, Copy, Paste, and Paste Special, the same way.
• Play with the order until you’re satisfied with it.

Click OK to return to your document and see the results.

We can now do a few other things with the QAT. Maybe you want to change its position. Right-click on the QAT and click on the command to Show Quick Access Toolbar Below the Ribbon. The QAT jumps down below the Ribbon.

Eh, not crazy about that change? Right-click on the QAT and click on the command to Show Quick Access Toolbar Above the Ribbon.

Go back to the Customize the Quick Access Toolbar window.

Let’s say you like the changes you made to the QAT and want to apply those to Word on another computer. Click on the Import/Export button and then click on the command to Export all customizations. Save the customization file in a place easily accessible to your other computer.

Now launch Word on the other PC and bring up the Customize the Quick Access Toolbar window. Click on the Import/Export button and then click on the command to Import customization file. Double-click the file you exported from the other computer. A window pops up asking if you want to replace all existing Ribbon and Quick Access Toolbar customizations for this program. (Yes, the customizations also apply to the Ribbon.) Click Yes, and your tweaks are applied.

Now crazy about the tweaks you made? No problem. Return to the Customize the Quick Access Toolbar window. Click on the Reset button. To reset only the QAT, click on the command to Reset only Quick Access Toolbar. To reset the QAT and the Ribbon to their default settings, click on the command to Reset all customizations. Your QAT reverts to its original state.

Master the Ribbon in Microsoft Office

You can tweak the ribbon for quick and easy access to your favorite commands.

The ribbon in Microsoft Office offers a way to run commands and tap into various features in any Office program. The ribbon changes its buttons depending on what you’re doing and where you are. Don’t like the ribbon because it doesn’t offer your favorite commands? No problem. You can customize it to remove buttons you don’t use and add buttons you want to use. Ultimately, you can fashion the ribbon so it’s populated with those commands you use the most often. And once you get the hang of tweaking it in one Office program, the process is the same for the rest of the suite. How can you master the ribbon in Office?

For this article I’m using Office 2016, but the information here applies to the past several versions of Office as well. I’ll enlist Word as my guinea pig, so launch Word to kick things off. You can open any accessible document you like. Right-click on any empty area on the ribbon. From the popup menu, click on the command to Customize the Ribbon.

The Customize Ribbon window pops up. On the left side is the list for Choose commands from where you can access all commands in Word. On the right side is the list for Customize the Ribbon where you can see the different ribbon tabs.

On the left side, click on the dropdown menu that says Popular Commands. You can now change the view to see commands not in the ribbon, all commands, macros, and other types of commands. On the right side, click on the dropdown menu that says Main Tabs. You can now switch the view to display All Tabs or just Tool Tabs. Switch the left menu back to Popular Commands and the right one to Main Tabs. Notice that the right side serves up an entry for each ribbon or tab in Word, such as Home, Insert, Draw, Design, and Layout. From here you can add a button to any of Word’s ribbons.

Let’s add a button to the Home ribbon. On the right side, click on the plus sign for the Home tab to display its buttons if the tab is not already open. Then click on the actual entry for the Home tab. Before you can add a button, you have to create a new group or section to house that button. Click on the New Group button at the bottom. An entry called New Group appears. That’s a pretty blah name, so we’ll change it. With the New Group entry still selected, click on the Rename button. We’ll use this new section to store buttons to zoom in or out of the document, so rename it to Zoom. Now we want to add buttons to it.

On the left side, click on the dropdown menu that says Popular Commands and change the selection to All Commands. Scroll down the alphabetical list of commands until you see the ones for zoom. You should find three commands: Zoom, Zoom…, and Zoom 100%. Let’s add the Zoom 100% command. Click on that entry and then click on the Add button. The entry for Zoom 100% appears on the right in the Zoom group. You can rename it and change its image. Click on the Rename button. Keep the name the same but select a different icon from the icon window. Click OK.

While we’re here, let’s add the other zoom commands. On the left side, click on the command for Zoom and then click on the Add button. Do the same for the Zoom… command. Before we leave the Options window to check our handiwork, we’ll change the order of the commands. Notice there’s an up and down arrow to the right of the Customize the Ribbon list. Click on the second Zoom command you added and move it up or down in the list. Then click on the Zoom tab itself and move it up in the list just above the Styles tab. Click OK at the bottom of the Options window to close it. You should now see the new zoom group and the three Zoom commands on the Home ribbon.

Click on each button to see what it does. Ahh, the Zoom and Zoom… buttons call up the same window, so displaying both is redundant. No problem. We can remove one. Right-click on any empty area of the ribbon and click on Customize Ribbon. On the right side, click on the plus icon for the Zoom group to display its commands. Right-click on one of the two Zoom commands and click on Remove from the popup menu. Click OK to close the Options window, and now you’ll see the remaining two zoom buttons on the ribbon. Hang on though, we can get rid of other stuff.

Let’s say you don’t use styles very much and want to remove that huge Quick Style Gallery toolbar on the Home ribbon. Return to the Customize Ribbon window. Under the Home tab on the right side, right-click on the entry for Styles and then click on Remove. Click OK to close the window. The Styles toolbar is gone, freeing up plenty of space for other groups and buttons on the Home ribbon.

Following the same steps described above, you can go back to the Customize Ribbon window and add more buttons to or remove buttons from the Home ribbon. You can also customize other Ribbons in Word to add or remove buttons.

Now, maybe you want to create a whole new ribbon. Can you do that? Sure. Let’s cook up a whole ribbon for tables. Return to the Customize Ribbon window. On the right side, click on the New Tab button. Notice that Word automatically creates a section or group in which to house the buttons. Click on the entry for New Tab and then click on the Rename button. Call it Tables. On the left side, change the view to display All Commands. Scroll down the list until you find the Insert Table command. Add that to the new Tables tab. Scroll down further on the left until you see more commands for Tables, such as Table Styles, Table Update AutoFormat, and Table Wrapping. Add each of those to the Table tab. You can then change the order of the commands by moving each one up or down. You can also change the order of the ribbons by moving the Table tab up or down. Let’s move it down so it appears after the Layout tab.

Click OK. In Word, click on your new Table ribbon and you’ll see the buttons for the commands you added. And you have plenty of space for more.

Here are a few more tips for customizing the ribbon.

Maybe you like the tweaks you made and want to apply them to Word on another computer. Return to the Customize Ribbon window. On the right side, click on the Import/Export button and then click on the command to Export all customizations. Save the customization file in a location accessible to both computers, such as an external drive or home network. Open Word on the other computer and launch the Customize Ribbon window. On the right side, click on the Import/Export button and then click on the command to Import customization file. Select and import the customize file, and Word assimilates all the changes.

Maybe you don’t like the tweaks you made and want to revert to the default ribbons. On the right side of the Customize Ribbon window, click on the Reset button. Then click on either Reset only selected Ribbon tab to reset the currently selected tab or Reset all customizations to reset any changes to all the ribbons.

Finally, perhaps you want to change the ribbons in Excel, PowerPoint, or another Office program. No sweat. The ribbons differ but the process is the same. Just follow the steps described above and you’ll be able to master the ribbon in any Office application.